How high does your blood pressure go when you’re sitting behind the wheel on Washington Street in downtown Syracuse, creeping like a turtle from red light to red light?

I get so agitated—burning up fuel, polluting the air, wasting time—that I have been tempted to run the red light. (Note to the police: I haven’t done it, yet.)

It turns out I’m a “mobility guy.” I expect our thoroughfares to get me into and out of Syracuse as fast as possible. When they don’t, they’re failing.

So when I read a few weeks ago that the city has asked the Syracuse Metropolitan Transportation Council (SMTC) to study the value of turning some one-way streets into two-way streets, I was dumbstruck. Won’t that just make the mobility problem worse?

If you’re an old-fashioned mobility guy like me it might seem so. But that’s not how it looks to an “access guy” (or gal).

People who think about traffic flow for a living—such as Paul Mercurio, a transportation planner for the city, and James D’Agostino and Mario Colone at the SMTC—argue that we no longer have the resources as a society to build wider and wider streets to move more and more single-passenger cars from point A to point B.

Our roads should do more than that. As Mercurio points out, thoroughfares are major public spaces, just like parks, and we have to start treating them as such. I must admit I had never thought of streets as if they were parks, but Mercurio is right. This was the start of my re-education.

“Access” people envision our streets as having the potential to improve economic activity and the overall quality of city life. Moving me swiftly into and out of Syracuse is neither their highest nor best use. Bike riders, shoppers, shopkeepers, and pedestrians have needs, too.

One-way streets may move traffic faster, but drivers see fewer businesses along the way. Pedestrians have a harder time crossing. Drivers who want to turn can be trapped for long stretches or be forced to take detours. One-way or high speed multi-lane arterials within a city can cut off and isolate a neighborhood. West Street is just such a barrier to the Near Westside.

Now consider the two-way street. Speed limits are lower. Slower drivers may notice more storefronts and stop to shop. Turns are easier, improving access to other districts. Drivers have options. Pedestrians are less likely to be mowed down by speeders. Bike riders have a chance, too.

“Access” thinking suggests one approach to making Syracuse a more livable and attractive city. It acknowledges that moving the passenger car should not be the sole purpose of our thoroughfares.

That is why the city and the SMTC are considering putting James Street on a “diet” (in transportation-speak). With two lanes of traffic in both directions, James now moves a lot of traffic, but it is not hospitable to bikes or pedestrians, nor does it reflect the street’s residential character. The diet could squeeze James to one lane each way. Another lane would be devoted exclusively to left turns. The final lane would be divided in half for bikes. James would be “calmed” and turned into a more complete road.

As a “mobility” guy I would have been the first to oppose this calming of James Street. Similarly, some residents of Camillus now oppose a diet for West Genesee. East Genesee in Syracuse and DeWitt was put on this diet a couple of years ago. This definitely calmed the street down, making it a better fit with its residential neighbors. But in fairness to those of us who use East Genesee, I can’t recall we were ever told what the transportation people were up to. Who knew about streets on “diets?” It wasn’t bad PR. It was no PR.

But what about those poorly timed red lights downtown? James D’Agostino of the SMTC acknowledges they are not working optimally. Proper timing of signals is important for both mobility and access. Paul Mercurio notes that help is on the way. Using mostly federal transportation money, the city is in the process of expanding the area in which the signals are interconnected with fiber optic cable. The city is purchasing a new software package to control the timing in this expanded area. Such an overhaul has not been done since 1997-98, and a lot is out of whack.

“All the pieces are in place,” says D’Agostino. “The desire to fix the signals is there, the funds are there” and the work has begun.

Now when I find myself sitting at a red light downtown, rather than blow a gasket, I’ll just say: “Access, not mobility. It’s the future.”

And I’ll calm down.

David M. Rubin, former dean of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, is an occasional columnist with The Post-Standard. Email him at dmrubin@syr.edu.